Football King Bale

After a soul-stirring and hard-fought battle, Manchester United struggled to reverse West Ham United and advance to the semi-finals of the 2010-2011 English League Cup. In this game, Bell, who played half the game but contributed two goals and two assists, is undoubtedly the biggest contributor.

While Manchester United are fighting fiercely at Upton Park, on the other side of London, Arsenal are also competing for another ticket to the semi-finals of this season's League Cup. In the end, they defeated Wigan Athletic 2-0 at home.

The next day, that is, the evening of December 1, local time in the UK, the remaining two quarter-finals of the League Cup continued. In the end, Birmingham defeated Villa 2:1, and Ipswich in the British Championship upset 1 :0 defeated West Brom and grabbed the last two tickets to the semi-finals of the League Cup.

In the subsequent League Cup semi-final draw, Manchester United drew Birmingham City, which is also a Premier League team, while Arsenal drew Ipswich Town, a mid-table team in the English Championship.

According to the schedule, the two rounds of the League Cup semi-finals will be held in mid-January and late January respectively. Manchester United's schedule is home first and then away, which does not have an advantage. Fortunately, the semi-finals of the League Cup do not calculate away goal advantage, but simply compare the number of goals scored.

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It's December in England, and most of England has already entered the snow-covered season. Snowing is common, and being frozen is also common.

Especially around Manchester, which is already in the northwest of England, there is more ice and snow in winter. Ice and snow are not friendly to football matches.

No, after the League Cup quarter-finals with West Ham United, Manchester United returned to Manchester and began to have a headache for the Premier League next weekend.

According to the Premier League schedule, Manchester United's away game against Blackpool will be played at 5:30 pm GMT on December 4. However, there was sudden shocking news before the game that due to extreme weather, Blackpool's stadium was frozen.

The weather in the city of Blackpool has been very bad in the past week. Although the staff of the newly promoted club tried their best to maintain the pitch turf, they still failed to prevent the Bloomfield Road pitch from freezing. The day before the game (December 3), the referee of Manchester United's away game against Blackpool, Mr. Walder, went to Bloomfield Road to inspect the stadium and concluded that the Blackpool stadium was not suitable for competition.

Official staff of the Premier League contacted both parties, especially Manchester United, and proposed a proposal to postpone the game. However, Manchester United rejected this proposal after repeated consideration.

It is also very difficult for Manchester United to make such a decision. After all, playing in a harsh environment is not good for Manchester United, which prefers a technical style of play.

However, considering that it is about to enter the most intensive period of the year's schedule, Manchester United has to bite the bullet and stick to the game.

Without considering any surprises, in the next two months of December and January, Manchester United will usher in 9 Premier League games from the 16th round to the 24th round of the Premier League, 1 Champions League group stage game, and 2 League Cup and a half games. In the finals, as well as the third and fourth rounds of the FA Cup, the total number of games will be as high as 14, almost all of which are double matches a week.

This excludes the situation where extreme weather occurs again and the game has to be postponed. In fact, based on past experience, it is inevitable that games will have to be postponed due to extreme weather.

Therefore, it is undoubtedly a wise choice to continue the game when there is only mild ice on the court.

As for postponing the game to February or later,

That would be even more impossible, because the Champions League knockout rounds will begin by then. In addition to the Premier League, FA Cup and League Cup, Manchester United is likely to start the war on four fronts. If there are still make-up games, it will be very difficult for the team. , it’s simply a disaster.

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Although the final match of the Champions League group stage will be ushered in next Tuesday night, all the main players of Manchester United were on the bus to Blackpool.

Manchester United, which has secured first place in the group one round in advance, has the capital to do whatever it wants in the final round of the group stage.

Of course, Manchester United, which is 10 points ahead of Chelsea and Arsenal in second and third place in the league, also has room for mistakes, but in order to go more calmly in the second half of the season, win a newly promoted Premier League team like Blackpool and continue to expand. Taking the lead is undoubtedly the best choice.

Before the start of the game against Blackpool, Manchester United also got good news, that is, their biggest competitor, Chelsea, was stubbornly forced to a 1:1 draw by Everton at Stamford Bridge!

The Blues losing points again may not only put them further and further away from Manchester United, but they may not even be able to maintain their second position in the standings. Because in the game at the Emirates Stadium at the same time, Arsenal defeated the farmer Fulham 2:1 and overtook Chelsea in the standings.

The Manchester United players were very happy when their biggest rival made a mistake. As for Arsenal's continued victory, the Manchester United players didn't care too much. Because in recent years, Manchester United's opponents have not been Arsenal. With Arsenal's peeing habits, they will naturally fall behind when the Champions League knockout rounds begin.

Of course, another important reason is that Manchester United will face the Gunners at home in ten days. If they are killed then, the points gap will further widen.

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This game between Manchester United and Blackpool is the 85th time in the history of the two sides. In the previous 84 games, Manchester United had the absolute upper hand.

Although there have been many encounters in history, the two sides have not faced each other for nearly 40 years. The last time the two sides met was in the English Second League in April 1975. At that time, Manchester United defeated their opponents 4:0 at home and then won 3:0 away. They won the championship that season and returned to the top league.

The last time the two sides met in the top league was in the old English League One in the 1970-1971 season, when both legs drew 1:1.

Manchester United released Rafael Scholes from injury in this game, and Ferdinand continued to be absent. Bale, who had just performed brilliantly in the League Cup quarter-finals, sat on the bench again. At the same time, Rooney was still at Manchester United in this game. Game 300.

Ferguson almost sent out his strongest lineup, goalkeeper Edwin van der Sar, back four Rafael, Smalling, Vidic and Evra, midfield four Nani, Fletcher, Scholes With Gibson, Rooney and Berbatov are the forward partners.

For Blackpool, the goalkeeper is their No. 28 Jinson, the four defenders are No. 5 Edley, No. 6 Evatt, No. 20 Cathcart, and No. 15 Alex Baptiste, and the four midfielders are They are No. 12 Taylor Fletcher, No. 14 Grandin, No. 26 Adam, and No. 11 Wogan, and the double forwards are No. 16 Varney and No. 39 Dudley Campbell.

In terms of the players on both sides, the newly promoted team and Manchester United are not at the same level at all. However, Blackpool was able to overpower Liverpool and rank 10th in the Premier League after 15 rounds, which illustrates the combat effectiveness of this team.

The Manchester United people were originally somewhat disapproving of this newly promoted team, but when the game started, Blackpool quickly proved to the Manchester United people why they can rank 10th in the Premier League.

In the 13th minute, Evra broke through with the ball and was elbowed by Adam and his lip bled. The referee did not indicate that Ferguson was very angry on the sidelines. Two minutes later, taking advantage of Evra's opportunity to come off the court for treatment, Blackpool played on the right and Rooney pushed the ball out of the baseline. Adam took a corner kick from the right, and Manchester United missed the mark. Cathcart, who was born in the Manchester United youth academy, scored with a header from 6 yards, giving Blackpool a 1:0 lead.

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Manchester United, who lost the ball first, immediately launched a counterattack, but the poor field conditions made it difficult for them to play a smooth offense. Coupled with Blackpool's tenacious defense, although Manchester United kept pressing Blackpool to attack, they were always unable to score. On the contrary, it was the home team's two counterattacks that made Manchester United very embarrassed.

In the 25th minute of the game, Adam broke through from the left and made a pass. Vidic took the risk of heading the ball back in the small penalty area, which scared the Manchester United soldiers. Fortunately, Van der Sar was focused and performed well, barely getting the ball. Dickey's back pass.

A minute later, Blackpool made a comeback. Smalling made a mistake in clearing the ball under the pressure of the opponent's forward and kicked the ball directly to the opponent. Varney made a cross from the right rib of the penalty area. When Van der Sar handed over his gun, there was no chance. Grandin's right-footed shot from 12 yards, which was being defended, actually kicked away.

Manchester United escaped, but the performance of the players on the field did not improve because of this. On the contrary, they were almost defeated by their opponents after 7 minutes. Grandin passed a cross from the right rib of the penalty area, which was blocked by Vidic and then deflected towards the goal. Fortunately, this time the deflection missed the goal slightly, but it still scared the Manchester United fans and the head coach Ferguson on the sidelines. Enough.

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After several consecutive good fortunes without conceding a goal, Manchester United's goal was still lost, and the goal was also caused by a mistake in positioning the ball defense.

In the 43rd minute, Varney passed the ball and Wogan shot a long-range left-footed shot from Van der Sar. Adam took a corner kick on the right, Nani's header from the front made a clearance, and Campbell's header from 5 yards from the back hit the goal. The ball flew into the goal from Rafael's head at the back post, Blackpool 2:0 .

Being two goals behind made the Manchester United players on the field a little unbalanced, and their actions on the field were getting bigger and bigger. And they also paid the price with two yellow cards. In the 45th minute, Scholes fouled Wogan who had already broken through and received a yellow card. In the second minute of stoppage time, Gibson also received a yellow card for knocking Grandin from behind.

Trailing by two goals at half-time, this was simply a replica of the game at Upson Park in midweek, which almost made team coach Ferguson almost furious.

In midweek, when we were two goals behind at half-time at Upson Park, it could be said that Manchester United sent out most of its substitute lineup, so its strength was limited. But now Manchester United is playing with almost all the main players. It can't be justified.

Therefore, before the referee blew the half-time whistle, the old man returned to the locker room with a livid face.

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